Plants as sensors

Plant signaling and communication

Plants are equipped with highly sensitive perceptive tools. They can handle informations about air, temperature, moisture, pollution, soil quality, poisons, gravity and potential enemies. But they don't just collect these informations, they comunicate them. This dialog takes place between plant to plant as well as from plant to animal.

For example: If wild tobacco is attaced by caterpillars, who aim to eat the leafs, the plant sends signals to so called bodyguard insects. In this case the pirate bug appears to eat the caterpillars, so the wild tobacco is out of trouble again.

There is also a well working wood community that shares not just information but also nutrition. The so called wood wide web. If the birches are in trouble because of a lack of nutrition caused by missing leafs in winter, spruces offer theirs to share towards a mushroom network.

But how can we use these abilities, and how can we read the signals?

At this very moments some scientist are trying to decode the electro-physical and chemical alphabet of the plants. So that we might be able to translate their language and understand their signals and warnings in the future.

That would be extremly useful for the agriculture as it would become possible to locate potential hotspot inside a field. That would enable us to use less pesticides etc as we could use it just on the area where pests are located actually.

Some artists already play with biofeedback of plants which is translated into sound. And we know the plant as interface from art projects like Sommerer and Mignonneaus "Virtual plant growing" from the early 90ies.